Yesterday, by a wide margin, responders indicated they spend more than 2 hours a day typically thinking about tea!!! You may still vote and discuss yesterday's topic!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Welcome everyone to TeaDay, Celebrate the day with many cups of tea...and share what you are drinking with everyone. Be sure to check out what is in everyone else's cup as well. If you need to, you can also reflect back on your TeaDay!

Today's TeaPoll and discussion topic is compliments of Teasweetie. She wondered when did you have your first cup or taste of tea. She also wondered what your impression was of that first cup. And, have you been drinking ever since? So, share with all of us your earliest TeaHistory! Have fun.

I can't pinpoint exactly when I first tasted tea, but I'm pretty sure I was younger than nine. When I say tea, I mean the yellow bags of Lipton stuff with lots of sugar stirred in. It took me decades after that to discover loose leaf.

I'm from the South and we are weaned on shockingly sweet iced tea. I've been drinking tea, in some form or another, for as long as I can remember. Loose leaf tea didn't come until about five years ago.

It may be a New England thing but my mother used to give me cambric tea (mostly warm milk with a bit of tea and sugar) beginning when I was about 2 years old. I started giving my son the same thing at the same age. He is now nearly 10 years old and he is a veteran tea drinker.

I was originally concerned about the caffeine but then I started looking at the amount of chocolate milk and diet cola that others were giving to their children and I stopped worrying. Tea is much healthier no matter how you stack it up. Even with a half teaspoon of sugar per big mug full, it has a fraction of the sugar as any juice out there.

My mother gave me overbrewed Lipton tea when I was sick. Funny, she was almost falling in line behind centuries of Chinese medicine practitioners.

Down to the last couple pots of Yutaka Midori while waiting for Shincha. This bag has been open now for over 4 months.
The roses are Pink Pet and Louis Phillippe, both China class roses that tolerate N Florida's miserable heat and humidity. Up north it's the cold that kills plants; down here it's the heat!

Whatever age a child starts having tea parties for her teddy bears and plush rabbits, I was sharing weak, milky tea with my table of little friends. I guess I was four or five years old.

I didn't LIKE the flavor of tea throughout my childhood, but as a teen I received a gift of a tin of loose leaf tea (I thinkj it was Twinings Earl Grey) and an infuser spoon, started drinking it because all the cool kids did, and the rest was history.

Tea will always remind me of my monther. She always enjoyed a good cup (English style).

ThinkingOutLoud wrote:I'm from the South and we are weaned on shockingly sweet iced tea.

Me too.

Same here. I can't remember not drinking sweet iced tea. At family gatherings, I have to dilute gma's iced tea so I don't get a cavity!

Didn't try hot tea til about 2-3 yrs ago when started having tea parties w/my little girl. I really got hooked last year & tried loose leaf last fall after finding TC & the rest is history. Can't decide if y'all are a good influence or bad...

Had yunnan gold w/bfast this morning. The jury is still out on whether or not I reorder.
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And BTW, Sal, your pictures are incredible!!! I've meant to post about them previously. I'm not even into Asian style teaware but I'd buy your pics! You should put a calendar together or do something with them. They are too beautiful not to share!

Knowing my mother, she would have given me a taste of weak tea as soon as I could manage it - certainly by the age of three!

Salsero wrote:The roses are Pink Pet and Louis Phillippe, both China class roses that tolerate N Florida's miserable heat and humidity. Up north it's the cold that kills plants; down here it's the heat!

Your photos are really stunning, Salsero. Please keep posting them...

I actually thought at first that those roses were double-petalled Kwanzan cherry blossoms. My neighbourhood is filled with them at the moment:

I don't remember the exact age I had my first cup of tea, but it was definitely an overbrewed mug from a lipton tea bag with a couple of teaspoons of honey, when I was sick. I also drank a lot of store bought iced tea when I was a kid.

The first time I had loose tea was at a restaurant this past winter. It was chocolate mint, and it was devine! The first time I brewed my own loose tea was this past February--citron green.

This morning, tung ting was in my cup. I enjoyed this oolong very much, with the hint of floral taste it had. I'm eager to see what the second infusion tastes like. Have I finally found another oolong to enjoy??